The How to protect projecting mages thresd got me thinking. Can you cast Reinforce on the plates in a vest with plates? First "NO" would be because they increase the barrier rating, not the armor rating. But what's the real difference?

If it has to be a barrier rating, would it mean the attack has to use the barrier rules and then the character gets the normal vest with plates armor rating?

Thoughts?

Why not just use the Armor spell? It's one of the stupidly designed ones, so extra successes don't matter, but it's pretty good even so. Force 6 = 11/9 on an Armor Jacked, 13/9 if you're using FFBA3, and no penalties since it's not layered like armor is.

True the Armor spell does do a rather tasty job of turning a Mage (or other friendly) into a mighty effective Bullet Barrier, but it also glows. And on a mission requiring stealth, a glowing team-mate is enough to turn even the most hardened into .

I don't like the idea, but Dikote offers up a potential suggestion for how to handle it. Since Dikote increases an items Barrier Rating by +2 while simultaneously increasing its Armor Rating by +1, that suggests a 2:1 ratio for something like this.

You could always design a non-glowy version of armor

edit, double post.

I always assumed the non-glowing version was impossible, otherwise it would be the standard armor spell. I've never seen anyone who thought glowing was good. (I have been known to cast a low force, limited armor spell on a member of the opposition. Like the invisible mage, or the guy with the stealth suit, just to light them up.

edit, darn triple post. I'm not post pumping, really.

Very true, but you use what you have. No question entertainment would be better, but for someone who doesn't have it, it's a really clever solution. Of course, if Tisoz's character has entertainment, I might have to take back that bit about being clever.

Challenge, is all.